The Clearing
by PoetWITHOUTaCause
Summary: a dark night in the middle of the clearing, all the answers come undone and the Liar's are in for the worse night of their life.


**Summary** a dark night in the middle of the clearing, all the answers come undone and the Liar's are in for the worse night of their life.  
**Author's Note **My sister put this idea in my head at the end of the season and I dismissed Lady Killer because I needed Paige to be evil- so sorry if you like her! I'll do an 'epilogue' of sorts if the reception is good.  
**Story Type** AU  
**Rating** PG-14 (Swearing)  
**Pairing** Spencer and Toby; Aria and Spencer;  
**-**Disclaimer**-**

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_"I believe we've got it wrong, got it wrong. _  
_We'll realize when it's said and done, said and done,_  
_that in our words we've lost so much more _  
_than we've ever won."_  
_-Unmade (Sleeping at Last)_

* * *

"Guys," Spencer warned, her voice dampened with an infliction of caution, as they stood in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by the A Team hiding in the trees. All three girls look to her as the fingers that were wrapped around her best friends arm carefully let go. Spencer Hastings turns her eyes on Aria Montgomery and for the first time ever, you see suspicion for one of their own. The tiny girl looks back at her friend warily, but curiously. Hanna follows the gaze and looks from one to the other in confusion, her lackey doing the same.

"What, Spence?" The question comes from the girl with the target on her head, but her tone manages to stay normal as the one who sees it all continues to back away. When she is finally comfortable with the distance, a knife appears at the hollow of Arias throat. A gasp of shock echoes around the trees where no breeze is flying. "What the hell, Spencer!" She exclaimed at her, not fighting against the person for the blade around her throat.

"Are you crazy, Spence?" Hanna yells with her, as her arm comes to yank on the leader of the group. Emily stares at the two in dumbfounded shock, holding her hands up to her mouth as a shocked yelp comes out, not able to utter a word at the scene evolving in front of her.

"You were always the best liar, Aria." Spencer attested with her cold, calculating voice that drifted through the air. The air itself crackles with intensity as all the cards are finally shown and the scene unravels for all to see. A stare down erupts between the small, brunette with the knife to her neck and the tall brunette with the smug smile.

"And you were always the naïve one, Spencer." Aria adds, taking her time to let the answers fall. It was long "Always ready to jump at whatever clue you find." Her tone is now the one to be coated with smugness as you watched her straighten up and her right hand fold over the wrist holding the knife, while the other takes it from his hand with no opposition from the guy standing behind her. A sad smile spreads on her face as Spencer's smugness turns to horrible shock. Aria collapses the knife in on itself, before stowing it away in her pocket, determined to return later. "And you are wrong about me, Spence." The smugness had left her voice, as she turns to the man behind her, her hand resting comfortably on his arm, and she wait as he finally moves his gaze from his girlfriend, to see Aria's apology.

"Wait, let me get this straight." Hanna comes into play and all of four of the people in clearings attention goes to her. "Aria is A?" She looks her tiny friend over twice before scoffing, "but she's tiny!" She finished.

"HEY!" Spencer and Aria both snapped at her out of their own control. You see their eyes meet and for a split second they smiled before remembering that a showdown was about to take place. Spencer tightens her arms across her chest and hardness comes to her eyes. "I want to know why, Aria. How could you do this?" Spencer asks the question revolving in the three girls' mind, eyeing Aria with hurt.

"I told you everything is not as it seems! It was never supposed to get this far. Never." She takes a few steps forward, and Spencer holds her ground as the apologies our out of Aria. "You all know I love you- but this was a secret that would get a three way trip to the morgue." Aria revealed in a voice that she used when making a point. "It was Mona and Jason's fault. They were never happy with what revenge they got, they just kept wanting more."

"Keep going." Spencer pushed harshly, eyeing both with distrust. Aria relented, and took a deep breath, eyeing the trees.

"Soon it wasn't about getting revenge on you guys for never standing up to Ali when any of us was in her grasp, it was about protecting you from Mona and Jason and their growing army.

"Then Toby came to me, asking what was going on and he joined the ranks. Ezra wanted to know why I was hanging out with Spence's boyfriend all the time. He has a soft spot for you, Spencer." Aria looks at her friend warmly with a soft smile, who doesn't return it, before continuing on with the story, "I had to protect you guys." Aria says as Toby placed a hand on her shoulder. "Mona is ruthless- Hanna, you should have let her ass go to Saratoga. She is bad news." She finishes as Hanna now looks at her with a hard hate.

Spencer steps up to the plate once again, knowing all the questions to be asked. "How many of you are there?"

Aria cocks her head at her. "Mona, Jason, and I make the A Team but soon other joined in- not a whole bunch, just one or two; Mellissa, Ian, and Garrett." Spencer looked at her in shock and exploded before she could.

"It's a horrible truth_, I know!_" Exclaimed Aria as Spencer went to talk. Aria held her hand up and kept talking, trying to get it all out that she fell over her words. "But then things got really bad when Mona and Jason decided texting wasn't enough- they wanted blood. Especially from me. They wanted to see me hurt." This time Toby put his hand on her arm for comfort. "This whole thing was supposed to go on for a month- two at the most. But then it fell apart."

Spencer stopped Aria's train of thought. "Why you, Toby?" Her eyes changed from hardness to heart broken.

"It was to save you." He stated his voice the same velvet as ever. "You wouldn't tell me anything, so I had to get answers where I could."

Aria cut in. "I tried to tell you Spencer, time after time; especially after Toby joined. I knew it had to stop, but now it's not just me. The new A- the one we have all been chasing. It's not me. It's not Toby." Aria listed, "I don't know who is on Mona's team- but she isn't at the head. She has an A Team that is bigger than mine." Aria steps up to Spencer, who still doesn't move away, "And mine is only still in session to protect you three." She lays a hand on Spencer's arm, "I didn't kill her. I never laid a hand on her. I don't even know who did. But there is another team out there, in the woods. This showdown wasn't supposed to include you guys in it. It was Toby and I against Mona, Jason, Paige, Jenna, Noel, and their leader." Aria finally confessed as they all look at her, but Emily was the one to charge.

"You little, lying, bitch!" She screamed out, just as Lucas appeared and caught her around the waist. Aria watched her, her friend, seething with anger that was directed at her at the right time, but for the wrong reasons.

"I was trying to protect _you_." She says again, before turning toward Hanna "You were never supposed to get that text. I tried to stop Mona- I swear I did everything I could. You should have never come." She spoke of the nights events, then a light lit in her, you can tell by her eyes that something changes. She grasped the situation that her best friends are in serious danger, life-or-death danger.

"You shouldn't have come!" Aria yelled out, startling everyone around her. Emily froze at the sound, Spencer had her eyes wide with shock, "You stupid girls! You could be killed tonight because you just had to save me! Don't you get it?" She stalked up to Spencer; Spencer looked down at her, the fierce hardness still burning, but also a pain- Aria was still her best friend and no matter what- how this had started- Aria was willing to die to save them and that meant something. "I don't want your help! _I'm A!_ Hate me, but get the hell away from me!" She pushed Spencer away from her and walked away, back toward Toby, running her hands through her hair.

"Aria," Spencer whispered in the dark, walking toward her, her walk cut short by a broken twig. Everybody in the clearing twisted to the source of where it came from. Hanna was now hugging Emily. Spencer instinctively clutched Aria's arm, as the two guys stood around them.

"I wish you would just leave." Aria breathed out, no one was sure who it was directed at- the A Team in the woods or her friends that she could no longer protect. Another twig broke on the other side, and they all turned toward it. It kept happening all around, in a circle, until they all knew that they were surrounded.

_"Little, little Aria, always running away."_ Came a voice from the right, creepy as ever. Mona.

_"Big bad Toby there to save the day,"_ Another continued, her voice had pitying sound. Jenna.

_"Then comes the geek, to fix the broken nest,"_ This time a male with a tone to suggest annoyance. Noel.

_"But we have the guns, to get rid of all the pests."_ A girl with her voice strong, unyielding. Paige.

Hanna looked around, trying to identify them all as they slowly came out of the woodwork. Noel showed up first, right behind Hanna and Emily. Jenna showed up behind Toby. Paige showed up behind Lucas, Jason joining to the right. Mona came out last. Right in front of Spencer and I. "Where's your leader, Mona?" Aria asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

Mona clicked her tongue as Aria moved in front of Spencer, Toby coming behind her and wrapping his arm around her waist. "This ends now, Mona!" Aria raised her voice as Spencer's grip on her arm tightened so she couldn't go any farther.

"Aria, always so quick to hand out the orders." Jenna laughed as Aria sneered at the girl. The wind had finally picked up and you could taste the tension in the air as it filled the clearing. Everyone was watching someone; everyone already had an opponent in their head; they all were out for blood now, but no one knew what would happen next. "You aren't our leader anymore." Jenna added, as Aria looked over her shoulder.

"And you are a bitch!" Hanna yelled out at her as they all walked toward Aria. They all turned toward her, some gave her a quizzical eye. "And by the way, that poem was creepy. But hey if that's what you were going for, whateves." She finished.

"Just shut up!" Noel called exasperatedly across the clearing.

"Hey! Don't talk to her like that!" Aria shot back, as they got into a death stare with each other. Their eyes were burning with hate as neither could look away, for fear of being the one to put its tail between its legs first. But finally Noel looked away, and Aria swiveled her eyes back to Mona. They just watched each other.

"How could you?" Came a question from the other side of the clearing, Emily's voice radiated in the air. Her eyes were locked on to Paige. "Why did you choose that team? The one that wants us dead?" Her cries picked up through the air and Paige almost looked ashamed. Almost. Hanna came up and cupped her shoulders with her hands, comforting or trying.

"You never moved on. Never. It was always Maya or Samara with you. There was no reason to protect you. You never protected me." She wanted to continue, but Mona took back control. No one saw the gun, no one knew who pulled the trigger- but who did, they weren't in this clearing- but one thing they all saw, heard and knew were the two shrill screams that rang through the isolated area.

Aria was the first, before she fell to the ground. "ARIA!" Spencer's blood-curdling scream was the second as she saw her fall, but Toby's arm wound around her waist as he scanned the tree's, Spencer fought against him. Then Emily shrieked, and Hanna sobbed. Aria fell to the ground, her body going limp as the blood slowly drained from her. Spencer broke apart from Toby and knelt beside her friend, just as Hanna got to her, grasping her hand tightly as Toby gave Spencer his jacket. "What the hell is going on?" Spencer yelled out to the A Team encircling them all. Aria cries grew louder as the bullet in her chest went deeper.

Spencer grabbed the knife out of the small girls' pocket and twisted away, up onto her feet. She walked in a circle and faced all of them, before pointing to Aria with the knife that was now open and shining in the moonlight. "If she dies, you're next!" She then swung the knife and pointed it at Jenna. "Do you hear me?" She threatened it one more time, before laughter surrounded them all.

"She needs a hospital, Spencer." Toby's voice rung out. "She is going to die if we don't get her there." He says again.

Spencer felt her heart tighten as she looked at the small girl, who looked like she was getting smaller by the second. "Aria might have betrayed us all, but she did try to protect us." She knew then that she could never hate her. They were sisters. She looked back at the crowd who surrounded them. "Let us go."

Mona smirks at them. "Alright."

"Spence." She hears her and looks at her. Aria's face was tear-streaked but her eyes were clear. She looked so . . . _tiny._ "We're surrounded. She has 7-8 people in her group; they aren't all out in the open." Her breath hitches as her eyes search for the next person. "Toby?" She breathes out, coughing a little and her lips seem redder than before. Everything turned surreal at that moment.

"It ends now." Spencer tells them all, watching as them as they watched her. "We know you have more than just this." Her hand jabs at the group standing before them. "You are going to let Aria go to the hospital, and then this all stops!" She finally breaks down. Her hand runs through her hair. "We have done nothing to you! _Nothing!_" Spencer's voice reaches a high as she tries to figure out what they want. "You want revenge, I get it! But it's Ali you hate, not us! I get it Jenna, we helped Ali blind you- well guess what? We all tried to stop her. Mona, you hate us because Ali didn't want to be seen with you, and now you are messed up.

"Noel, why are you even here? Jason doesn't like us because Ali . . . what? Tormented you? Paige is all pissy because Ali tricked her into revealing she was gay. And whoever else is hiding, guess what? Hanna, Emily, Aria, or I have never done a damn thing to you!" She takes in a deep breath as they all watch her, keeping her in their sights. Spencer Hastings stalks to Mona Vanderwal and looks down at her, her voice suddenly low and menacing as she leans in. "You are going to let us go. Then you will leave us alone, because if you don't I will personally take this knife and slit your throat." Spencer face keeps straight and Mona looks shaken but does well to hide it.

Her eyes turn a new shade of evil as she looks back at her. "You care so much about a girl who took your trust and twisted it so much you can't even tell who is really on your side, can you Spencer?"

"I can't lose her, Mona. What she did- it's unforgivable- but it's too late because I already forgave her," She raises the knife, "Now I am at my wits end here, and I have been dragged every which way by you bitches- so I'm not asking this time. I'm telling you."

"You wouldn't dare." Mona breathes as Spencer takes a step closer to her. Toby sounds a warning as Aria's pulse drops.

"I really don't want to know what your little team has pushed me far enough to do." Spencer pushes back as Mona watches her, the nights seems darker, the light all but gone as the moon hides behinds clouds. Everyone watches them as Mona thinks things through.

"Let them go." Mona says and Hanna audibly breathes out, her counterpart doing the same. Toby picks up Aria and holds the jacket to her. Spencer grabs Toby's' hand as they follow the others out, "Spencer." Mona's voice rings out. "This isn't over." She smirks and Spencer once again raises her knife.

"I've changed my mind. If she dies, _you_ die." Spencer listens to the change in the atmosphere after her word float around, she hears Hanna's and Toby's car ignite in the dead of the night, before turning her back on the crowd in the clearing stained red, watching as the Liar's escaped, hoping to save Aria and know what she knows. To try to move past this- the ultimate betrayal and the ultimate sacrifice.


End file.
